Put Some Passion into the Bones of your Business

Your creative business writing quotient matters for the success of your business. In business, it’s very common to hear that “it’s not personal” or “dream big but keep it real”. The truth is that business is human, and there is nothing more human than dreaming big and being creative about making that dream real.

One of the biggest barriers to planning and launching your business is putting words to your passion. It all starts and ends with the quintessential Business Plan, the bones of your business. Most people think writing a business plan is a bare-bones arduous process of concisely describing your business, what it’s for, what it does and for whom, what your goals are and how much it will cost to achieve them, how you’re going to accomplish and measure them, and why you’re the right person for the venture, along with the legal and financial stuff needed.

Yes, it’s all that. But at its core, a business plan is a tool to communicate your passion. Internally, it provides a roadmap that helps you work out your goals and the strategies to achieve them and then serves as a reminder of your business direction and priorities. Externally, it serves as your company’s resume to attract partners, investors, employees and vendors.

It’s not enough to learn how to improvise and think creatively. You also need to make sure you have a firm grasp on the written word and know how to express yourself with flair. How? By putting pen to paper, or rather, words to screen, more creatively.

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, but you can’t sell anything without words that tell a story, your story. For that story to motivate your customers to buy and buy again, your words must be compelling and represent you well. It’s not the just the quality of the words you use; it’s the point they make: Just Do It.

What differentiates one business plan from another is how much passion you actually put into it. After all, it is, first and foremost, a tool for business communication. A business plan is a business pitch, a written elevator speech. As such it has to motivate your readers to action: Support! Partner! Fund! Invest!

A business plan is also a living document that has to be continually updated to keep up with your industry’s latest trends and reflect your short-term and long-term goals. You want to stay ahead of your competitors and find unique ways to address evolving market needs and deliver your solutions. That’s why creative writing is such an essential part of describing, explaining and presenting your business.

Using creative writing in your business writing can have dramatic effects on your business. It’s not just about crunching numbers and drawing rational, logical conclusions. It’s about driving creative thought and success by challenging your standard way of thinking. It’s about imagining novel ways to present your solutions to market needs.

Creativity is a pattern-breaker that forces you to pay attention to things you have ignored or sidelined from your business vision. When you put creativity into your business writing, you encourage your brain, and with it your business, to stretch and unfold.

The more you practice applying creative writing to your written business communications, the faster and more capable you will become at thinking outside and beyond the box, or better yet, as if there were no box. You will come up with new and fascinating story lines to enrapture and captivate your audience.

Putting creativity into your business writing also improves your critical thinking. Creative writing expands your field of experience with words and will help you develop different stories for and about your business. It also enhances your ability to evaluate your different business stakeholders and situations and in so doing gain knowledge from them. This will enable you to make more effective and efficient decisions using the right information. Learning to use words that respond to your emotions and those of others will help you better master the factors that affect your business performance.

The more you exercise your creative flair in your business writing, the better and stronger you will write. It will force you to think, feel, perceive and adapt your communication to the target audience. Getting into the habit of being creative will also extend into other areas of your business and your life. It will help you solve problems in new and exciting ways. It will also help you better understand what drives your target market, what encourages your employees to be better and what inspires you to make your business work.

So keep your writing skills sharp and fresh by dipping your pen (or rather your keyboard) into creative waters. Let your creativity loose! It will make your business more profitable.